Adriana Pianelli called out to her husband and son as they disappeared under a sea of mud in the underground carpark, during a deadly storm that devastated villages in central Italy.
OSTRA, Italy –
The father and son were just two of an estimated 10 people killed in the Marche region by the flash floods. “The front door burst off its hinges and I was thrown up against the wall. I just managed to climb onto of a cupboard and there I waited, for death,” he said.The warehouse worker, 30, choked back tears as he picked his son’s dinosaur toys out of the mud and tossed them onto the nearest pile of ruined sofas, beds and tables lining the street in Pianello di Ostra.
Laura Marinelli, 33, grabbed her 18-month-old daughter and ran to neighbours upstairs as her ground-floor home near Ostra began to flood. The only thing she took with her was a pack of nappies.